Galileo Group to inaugurate the first thermoelectric plant independent of gas pipelines

On September 15, Methax, the generator company of the Galileo Group, will inaugurate its new thermoelectric power plant in the town of Anchoris, Province of Mendoza. The event will be attended by the provincial authorities, led by Governor Alfredo Cornejo.

The new plant will be fueled by natural gas from wells not connected to the pipelines and located in the area of ??Malargüe. It is Argentine natural gas that could not be used with the available technology and will now be liquefied directly in the wells to be taken to the plant in trucks equipped with cryogenic tanks, a mode of transport of liquefied natural gas (LNG) defined as Virtual Gas Pipeline.

The experience is unprecedented worldwide and its engineering has been developed by Galileo Technologies, the Galileo Group's compressor and gas transport equipment manufacturer. The main virtue of the solution developed is that neither large production volumes are required in the wells nor high levels of demand on the consumption side for the exploitation and transport of natural gas are economically viable operations, unlike what happens with the conventional gas pipelines.

This technological change will allow taking advantage of the dispersed and difficult gas that could not be counted as a reserve and will stimulate the production of hydrocarbons in remote areas, since it will now be possible to capture natural gas from the first minute of the testing periods of the wells.

Thanks to the dispersed gas, the new power plant will provide 41 megawatts (MW), which will cover the needs of 125,000 people in the Province of Mendoza and/or may be injected directly into the Electric Wholesale Market, depending on the needs of network.

The benefits will also be environmental. By using natural gas instead of diesel, this LNG-driven plant will generate electricity with 30% less carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

“For about 15 years that no electric power was incorporated in the province and we are doing it in partnership with private investment, with national technology and gas that until now did not reach consumers," said Pablo Magistocchi, Vice President of EMESA (Empresa Mendocina de Energía SA), the company that the provincial state integrates with its municipalities.

In implementing the project, the Galileo Group has invested USD 100 million in equipment development and manufacturing and in the construction of the plant, whose work took nine months and employed 150 people.

LNG also to bring natural gas to new consumers

With a view to the medium term, the association between the production of LNG in the wells and the Virtual Pipeline will allow to inject new gas in the trunk pipelines, as well as to distribute it with a logistics identical to the one of the liquid fuels.

The latter will make it possible to gasify isolated populations in rural areas, which would otherwise be impossible to carry gas, and to replace traditional, more polluting and expensive fuels in the transport of loads and in high-power consumption.

"Our next objectives are to gasify communities and promote the consumption of LNG in heavy transport; the inauguration of this plant is the first step of what we call Third Generation Gas or Gas 3.0," said Osvaldo Del Campo, President and CEO of Galileo. "By separating natural gas from gas pipelines, we can take advantage of multiple gas sources that until now were unattainable," Del Campo concluded.